Shani Davis of the USA after his race in speed skating men's 1500m during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Adler Arena Skating Center. / Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

by Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY Sports

SOCHI ‚?? Shani Davis started on his future, his plans for the rest of these Olympic Games and his career in speed skating, but he couldn't stop thinking about the past.

Three days later, and after another unexpectedly weak performance, this time in the 1,500 meters, Davis continues to be plagued by doubts created by his eighth-place finish in Wednesday's 1,000, an event he had hoped to win for the third consecutive Olympics.?

He admitted after Saturday's race, where he finished 11th, that the 1,000 had weighed heavily on his mind, taxing his normally robust sense of self-confidence as he prepared for another medal event.

"I wasn't good enough today," Davis said. "I think after the 1,000-meters race, it took a lot out of me knowing that I did the best I could and wasn't good enough there. And not having the confidence of the 1,000, I think it carried into today."

As the Olympics continue to progress ‚?? and as the disappointments add up for U.S. Speedskating ‚?? Davis stands as the most noteworthy example of the much-praised team's fragility and decreasing level of self-assurance.

"We're coming up short, to say the least," coach Ryan Shimabukuro said. "It's frustrating. It's very confusing. It's hard to shift momentum, right? When you start out trying to keep the ground from falling out from under you, and once you feel like maybe it's gone, it's hard to change that."

No American skater finished higher than seventh in the 1,500, leaving the USA without a medal after seven events. Across each event, the top finish by a U.S. skater has been seventh: Brian Hansen was seventh in the 1,500 meters and Heather Richardson in the 1,000. In comparison, American speedskaters claimed a combined 19 medals over the last three Winter Games.

The decline from recent Olympic glory to Sochi ‚?? if not from this past World Cup season to these Games ‚?? has been severe, perhaps rivaled in severity only by the damage done to the U.S. team's psyche.

"It's brutal," Shimabukuro said. "My heart bleeds for the skaters because I know how much they put in and how much momentum we had coming into the Games and the support we've had not only from the Olympic Committee but our sponsors and our families."

The inability to match expectations seems to echo strongest in Davis, the country's greatest skating star, who several times after Saturday's race seemed to both deflect criticism of several outside factors ‚?? like the Under Armour "Mach 39" skin suit, which was replaced for the 1,500 event ‚?? and acknowledge an increasingly fragile state of mind.

"I think that if you think about it, we had to deal with a lot of things," he said. "I'm not going to say 'we.' I had to deal with a lot of things that I normally would not have had to deal with."

Beyond the furor and controversy over the suit and U.S. Speedskating's choice to train in Collalbo, Italy, no one factor seemed more impactful than his performance in the 1,000. This was no ordinary upset: Davis had dominated the distance since claiming gold at the Torino Games in 2006, and finished not only outside of the top spot but off the medal podium altogether ‚?? a far cry from his usual standing as the world's best and a shocking development for those familiar with the sport.

"Coming across the line, after having one of my best openers of my life, not being able to find the speed‚?¶ that plays with me, in my head," he said.

"It makes me question some of the things that I've done leading up to these races. And I'm not necessarily sure what is the blame for whatever, but I know that whatever happened that day took a big toll on me. It was really hard for me to build myself up and go out there and think that I'm the world's fastest skater. In reality, I'm eighth."

Later Saturday, Davis took to his Twitter account to share his post-race thoughts with his more than 21,000 followers.

"So many feelings right now," read one tweet. "But first, THANK YOU to everyone who's been supporting me, at these Games and for past 4 years."

Read another: "(I) cast no blame & put all responsibility where it lays: on me, as always. Couldn't have felt better before 1000, or lower than right now."

To reporters, Davis expressed his biggest regret: that after battling so hard for recognition inside his own country, he finally received the attention he craved heading into the Sochi Games ‚?? and promptly failed to come close to matching his medal expectations.

He's been fighting for this sort of acknowledgment since 2002, Davis said.

"I wanted to be a speed skater that Americans knew, loved, followed and cheered for. And I worked hard to get that in 2006, it didn't quite go my way. In 2010 I didn't have anyone working for me in that corner that would pull those people in my corner.

"Now in 2014, I had the whole country behind me," he said. "I had all kinds of really cool sponsors and people following me. I had everything going into it but I come away with nothing to show them and give back to them to say thank you for believing in my and following me. I'm really disappointed not only for myself, that I couldn't meet my expectations, but for the people that have been tuning in and watching. That's very disappointing that I couldn't do more for them."